Thursday, 23 January 2014

Rogue Trader Campaign Log - Session 20: Visions of Future-Past

The group stared at the flickering holo-recording of the Adeptus Astartes captain as it reached it's end and froze, the static image of the space marine lingered, hovering over the broadcasting device; Enginseer Prime Pak took away the device, promising that he was going to study it and work out an approximate age based on the metallic particles within it's surface so that they could more accurately date when the people of these system had first been deposited on the moon of Strive by the doomed Space Wolf Captain. Oberlieutenant Jurgen Borsch speculated that the geneseed spoken about in the message must be used to grow something; meanwhile Lord Admiral Black had remembered that they had a member of Clan Klok aboard the Rod Hant (Sjomann Amelie) and that Clan Klok supposedly had their clanship base around the inner asteroid cluster of the Endeavour system where potentially the last resting place of the Space Marine vessel was (assuming, given Lorgar's previous interest, that it had not been destroyed). Sending for the Sjomann he bought her aboard and questioned her regarding the ancient legends of her people, Amelie seemed dismissive, saying that they were just legends and that her people's clanship was moored near a large asteroid that they called "the Eye of Byggmeister" and viewed as a part of their god.

Enginseer Prime Pak re-entered saying that he had aged the device and that, it seemed to originate within the era known as the Horus Heresy; he suggested that perhaps they could open peaceful negotiations with Clan Klok who had remained aloof from the system conflict thus far and had not declared for Lorgar or against him. When the Sjomann enquired why they were asking so many questions about her peoples legends, Lord Admiral Black said that there may have been a real person behind the legends and that they were seeking for the truth of it; Amelie agreed to open negotiations on their behalf but said that they would have to travel to the centre of the system and make psychic contact since solar flare activity made electronic communication unreliable, Lord Admiral Black sent her back to the Rod Hant.

A few moments later the Rod Hant began to pull away from the Venerus and would not respond to any attempts at communication; making his way to the teleportarium chamber onboard the Venerus Enginseer Prime Pak transported himself into one of the storage lockers adjacent to the engineering department aboard the Rod Hant. Peering out from his hiding place the Mechanicus tech-priest could see that the crew seemed to be under some form of unholy influence, the ship servitor's eyes glowing with a baleful green light. Meanwhile Oberlieutent Jurgen Borsch launched at the head of his Void Kraken fighter squad and moved into the void of space, spreading out to blockage the Rod Hant and attack should it attempt any hostile action.

Onboard the Venerus, Navigator Benetec was scrutinising the warp and could feel it's malign presence rife on the Rod Hant; Lord Admiral Black received a communication from his security staff and, upon running out of his chambers, witnessed glowing green runes springing up on the bulkheads around the Venerus where Sjomann Amelie had once drawn blood runes (allegedly to help solve a demon infestation). As Benetec struggled to repel an ancient and evil presence that stared at his psyché through golden eyes he managed to advise Admiral Black that if they conducted a short warp jump to the opposite side of the system it may be enough to disrupt the treacherous Sjomann's sorceries, seeing little choice Admiral Black agreed and gave the order, first contacting Borsch to apprise him of the situation and to tell him to sit tight.

"If only Cornelius was here" - Lord Admiral Fortunus Black

With a blinding flash the Venerus disappeared to reappear moments later on the opposite side of the system, seemingly free of sorcerous influence; Jurgen's fighter wing used maneuvring thrusters to approach the Rod Hant unseen and magno-grapple themselves to it's hull. Inside Pak was attempting to interface the ship and lock out the bridge when he spotted the fighters attaching themselves, he cut off the sensors so that the bridge wouldn't pick up their presence. Over in the corner of the room was a servitor that Pak had disabled and examined, there seemed to be no problem with the mechanical components so the sorcery must be infecting what little biological processes remained in the servitor.

As it drew nearer the asteroid cluster at the centre of the system the Rod Hant began picking up a strange tower-like craft located on the other side of the cluster; at this point Pak de-activated the life-support system to the bridge and re-routed comms to his own console using it to respond mechanically to the requests for communication that were incoming from the tower-ship. A few moments later as the bridge crew gasped out their last breath and Sjomann Amelie died, the green light passed from the eyes of the remaining crew and they slowly began to come to their senses, seizing the opportunity Pak reclaiming the bridge, turning back on the atmosphere and assigning his tech-adepts to clear out the bodies. The tech-adepts began scanning the asteroid and informed Enginseer Pak that they were getting strange readings reminiscent of a warp field from the asteroid cluster; meanwhile Lord Admiral Black boarded the Thunderhawk gunship that they had appropriated from Strive and began to fly towards the Rod Hant, leaving his cousin Tullius Black in command of the Venerus.

With a tearing sound a large craft exited the warp near the Venerus and, to their surprise, a damaged imperial warship identifying itself at the Vigilance appeared; soon Navigator Benetec found himself in a meeting with Captain Tullius Black and the captain of the Vigilance, a man named Armadeus Ajoku. It appeared that, since the Venerus had last visited Port Wander the imperial outpost had come under attack from strange metallic pyramid craft that had all but destroyed the outpost, the Vigilance had been on deep patrol and had been too late to help in the defence; Imperial authorities on the port had ordered them to seek help and the Navigator of the Vigilance (a member of House Feracci) had locked onto the strong psychic presence of Navigator Benetec, the poor Navigator had about burnt out her mind getting the ship here and was currently in their medical bay.

Onboard the Thunderhawk their was a flash and Admiral Black suddenly found himself tied down in a chamber that he recognised as being on his home world on Telec Prime, he was restrained and strapped to some sort of medical bed, a med-tech preparing him for an injection of some sort. Admiral Black was struggling to free himself when the bedraggled and ill looking form of his father Macharius Black who staggered forward saying "If it's any consolation my boy, i'm genuinely sorry it had to be you, you were always my favourite, but gene-splicing and life extension therapy can only extend my life so far." Before Lord Admiral Black could react further there was another flash and he found himself sitting back aboard the Thunderhawk, some of his men looking around in bewilderment all apparently experiencing strange visions.

A small ship from the tower-vessel carrying a party that was preparing to go aboard the large asteroid and look for the geneseed began to move through space. Oberlieutenant Jurgen Borsch saw something flash infront of his eyes and suddenly his fighter sensors were full of enemy craft of an unknown configuration, the blazing hulk of Port Wander zoomed past as he dodged incoming fire from a strange silver craft. There was a scream from the comms as his lieutenant Schultz flew infront of him, pursued by two alien missles; Borsch attempted to shoot them down but only got one, the other impacting with Schultz's craft and destroying it.

"There's two of them on my tail! I can't shake them... I can't..." - Fighter Lieutenant Schultz

As the flash of the explosion faded Borsch found himself back in the cockpit, his readouts now empty, many of his men (including Lieutenant Schultz) were swearing on the comms apparently their minds haunted by their own phantasms.

On the Rod Hant there was another flash and Enginseer Pak found himself standing in a strange featureless silver corridor, an expressionless silver skeleton stood facing him, it's voice asking him strange things in his head. Attempting to respond in king Pak was lead to the bridge of the strange ship where he saw a screen that showed an attack by the strange machine men on Port Wander.

As Pak watched he saw a disabled Imperial fighter, guns empty and engines failing hit it's thrusters and gun itself forward on a collison course with the silver alien vessel, he had a moment to recognise the distinctive personalised paint job as belonging to the fighter craft piloted by Jurgen Borsch then an explosion engulfed his vision and Pak found himself back on the Rod Hant.

Navigator Benetec was busily explaining the ability of the Ancient Enemy to merge with other technology and to phase through solid objects whilst Lord Admiral Black landed his Thunderhawk on the asteroid and made ready (with a contingent of soldiers) to follow the Clan Klok exploration party into the Eye of Byggmaister.

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